RE
At CJS, PRE introduces children to ‘the best that has been thought and said, and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.” We want to inspire a curiosity and lifelong interest in religious and non-religious world views and enable children to explore philosophy, theology and ethics in order to develop their own world view and empathy with others.
Intent
The PRE Curriculum (philosophy, theology and ethics) aims to help children to have greater religious literacy so that they can develop the ability to hold balanced and well-informed conversations about religion, values, belief and practices. The PRE Curriculum will be balanced and broadly based and will promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of students whilst preparing them at school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Our curriculum will provide learning experiences beyond the classroom and allow students to experience PRE through visiting speakers and trips.
Implementation
At CJS, we maintain high teaching standards in PRE and aim to implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. We are currently developing a new scheme partly based on the NATRE scheme of work which adopts a creative enquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. We want to ensure children develop their knowledge, understanding and disciplinary skills, enabling them to become critical thinkers and empathetic learners.
Children are taught a PRE lesson once a week by their class teacher. We expect lessons to include opportunities for children to ask questions, discuss topics and to record their findings in different ways. Christianity is taught in every year group and other key principle faiths are taught throughout the four year groups. These include: Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Sikhi. Non- religious world views are also included within the PRE Curriculum.
Impact
We want our children to be able to consider their own spiritual, moral, social and cultural development through the teaching of PRE. We also expect children to express their own opinions and ideas about PRE. Showing an understanding for others with different views is important to us. We expect children to learn key facts and values of major world religions, and to develop a tolerance and respect for different faiths and cultures (in line with our promotion of British Values and also in line with our regular assemblies).
